"Actor: Mark Danvers"

• Dancehall Queen | DVD | (25/08/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A Cinderella story from the mean streets of Kingston, Jamaica, the alternately comic and gritty Dancehall Queen is an intriguingly dark crowd pleaser. Marcia (Audrey Reid) is a single mom and street vendor barely scraping by even with a financial assist from the seemingly avuncular Larry (Carl Davis), a gun-toting strongman with a twisted desire for Marcia's teenage daughter. Complicating things is Priest (Paul Campbell), a murderous hood who killed Marcia's friend and now is terrorizing the defenseless woman. Facing three big problems--Larry, Priest, and a lack of money---Marcia arrives at an inspired solution: develop an alter ego, a dancing celebrity called the Mystery Lady who can compete in a cash-prize contest and pit both of the men against one another. Which is exactly what she does, and it's great fun watching Marcia instigate her complicated plan with a little help from sympathetic friends. Colorful, rowdy, funny, and dangerous, Dancehall Queen is a clever and ceaselessy energetic movie steeped in Kingston street life and the desire to keep body and soul together at home. Reid is a delight as the everyday figure who transforms into an icon in the evenings, and the dance scenes are amazingly bawdy. --Tom Keogh

• Don't Open 'Til Christmas | DVD | (01/12/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  'Don't Open Till Christmas' is a thrilling and bizarre murder mystery where nothing is sacred - even Santa Claus! A killer is on the loose in London and his sights are set on one target - Santa Claus - dozens of them. Jolly old Saint Nick is stabbed beaten and electrocuted in department stores at parties and even on crowded street corners. What sort of twisted mind is behind these barbarous acts of violence?

• Third World Cop | DVD | (11/09/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Shot on the streets of Kingston and set to a rich reggae score by Sly and Robbie, the highest grossing film in Jamaican cinema (according to the producers) is a simple cops-and-gangsters thriller that drops the usual two-fisted cop clichés into the slums of a developing nation. Charismatic Paul Campbell (who starred in the previous Jamaican hit Dancehall Queen) is Capone, a Jamaican Dirty Harry who wades into shoot-outs with both guns blazing. His maverick reputation lands him in Kingston, his hometown, where he tracks a gun-smuggling scheme to his boyhood friend Ratty (Mark Danvers), now the ambitious right-hand man to the local kingpin. It's a familiar story and the timid script always chooses action over drama. Capone's violent methods are never questioned, even when he's faced with old friends instead of faceless hoods, and he is given unimaginable leeway to shoot his way through the criminal population. Shot on digital video and released to theatres in a smeary-looking transfer, the video release is mastered from the digital source and looks infinitely better than its theatrical incarnation: crisp, bright and vivid. The energetic style helps the picture overcome some of its generic cop-movie clichés, but the real draw is the street grit of clapboard houses, corrugated metal fences and concrete brick homes: the matter-of-fact poverty of Kingston's slums. --Sean Axmaker

• Dancehall Queen | DVD | (28/02/2000) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Set in the slums of Kingston, Jamaica, Dancehall Queen is a hugely enjoyable melodrama featuring a resourceful heroine, spectacularly slimy villains and a lot of very loud music. Street vendor Marcia (Audrey Reid) is under pressure from all directions--family friend Larry has made her dependent on his good will before putting sexual pressure on her teenage daughter while street thug Priest has killed a friend for minding her patch and is now trying to push his way into her bed. What is attractive about this film is that Marcia wins by playing to her strengths: she goes back to the wild-child dirty dancing she loved before having her children and becomes Mystery Lady, a contender for cash prizes in competition. Most of the film's occasional touches of wild comedy come from her attempts to keep this from her rather staid daughter and the ease with which, from behind silver foil fringes and jewelled nose-chains, she can take revenge on the men who mess with her quieter persona. This is a surprisingly classy little movie, whose rawness comes across as urgency: e en those of us who miss half the patois dialogue can't help but respond to its fizzy energy. On the DVD The DVD has digitally re-mastered music, the usual chapter index, a Web link and what is called "Hyperactive DVDROM" content which means it is very, very flashy and very, very loud. --Roz Kaveney